Mother
by Shadows.Dance
Summary: Esme didn't notice until too late the way her son's shoulders were shaking. As if he were...crying. And then she realized he was. Quiet, tearless sobs, that she hadn't even noticed until right then. A shared moment between Esme and Jasper. Not romance.


_Edit 7/28/2010: Sorry guys, if you put this on your alerts and got a message saying there was a new chapter, I just read through this and cringed at the bad grammar. Hope fully I got it all, but you never know :)_

Esme smiled calmly as she pulled a small weed out of the dirt in front of her. The house was quiet. Alice and Rosalie had dragged Bella to a fashion show down in California, and Emmett and Edward were hunting. Carlisle had gone to a doctors' convention (after much encouragement and convincing), and would be back that night. Renesmee was out with Jacob, visiting they La Push pack. Most of the time, she enjoyed the hustle and bustle and joy that surrounded the house, but sometimes she enjoyed the peace and quiet that an empty house brought. Well, almost empty.

Esme glanced thoughtfully up at her son, reading another one of his philosophy books on the deck. Jasper was immersed in it, turning the page every few minutes. She noticed absently that he was reading at a human pace—something that he did occasionally when he wanted to preserve the moment. Her other children would always try to get through a book as fast as they could, but not Jasper.

Smiling again, Esme pulled her straw hat lower over her head and continued working in her garden. It was sunny out, and they both glittered brightly as the sun hit their skin. The hat wasn't needed, but she enjoyed the normalcy of it.

"Esme?" Jasper called softly, and she looked up immediately.

"Yes, dear?"

"Do you...well, do you remember anyone from your human life, besides," he hesitated, as if afraid to say it. "Besides your son, or your...first husband?"

Esme barely reacted to the mention of her baby boy that had died. After all, _Jasper _was her son now, and Edward, and Emmett. Instead, she felt anger wash over her at the mention of her abusive husband.

Jasper frowned, and suddenly Esme was calm again. "Sorry," he mumbled.

"That's all right Jasper." Thinking over his original question, Esme tipped her head to the side in thought. "I remember one friend I had. We were so close. She had always wanted to be a doctor, despite the fact that everyone told her she should simply stay at home." Esme's expression grew mournful. "I always wonder what happened to her," she murmured.

"What about your parents?"

"Carlisle later told me that my father had died of a heart attack when I was 14. He got the information from another doctor in the hospital. I only vaguely remember my mother. She had dark hair, and she always kept it up. I remember that she always loved to be cooking something..." her voice trailed off as Esme got lost in her memories.

So caught up in her past, Esme didn't notice until too late the way her son's shoulders were shaking. As if he were...crying. And then she realized he was. Quiet, tearless sobs, that she hadn't even noticed until right then. Esme felt immediate guilt for not noticing the way that Jasper was in _pain._

She longed to stand up and hold him and comfort him, but she knew that Jasper didn't react to physical contact the same way her other children did. While they would melt into her arms and tell her what was upsetting them, even when they didn't think they wanted to, Jasper would only freeze up and stand there stiffly until she let go. This knowledge only made Esme long to hold her newest son more. Instead, Esme carefully stood up and gently reached out to him, lightly touching his shoulder where he sat.

She didn't even know why he sounded so upset, though. "I can't remember her. My own birth mother. I don't even remember her name," he choked out. Ah. That was it. Esme's heart broke at such an upset sound, not even caring about they 'why' anymore. Jasper turned his face into her blouse, and Esme gladly wrapped her arms around her him.

"I'm sorry," she told him, knowing there was not much else she could do—and hating it.

Jasper continued to shake, clutching her shirt like a lost child. "I don't remember anyone. I can only remember the basics. I fought in the war. People liked me, and I was charismatic. But I can't remember the _people._"

Esme brushed his golden blonde hair back out of his eyes, humming softly and comfortingly to him. The song that Edward had written for her, but with different notes here and there, until it came to an entirely different bar. The song he had wrote. Jasper had once played a little something on his guitar, and Esme had just happened to catch little snippets of it. When he found her listening, Jasper dedicated it to her, saying she was inspiration for a lot of it.

"I wish there was some way I could take the pain away," Esme told him softly. "Unfortunately, only you can do that. Both because you have to overcome it, and because your the family empath."

She chuckled, and Jasper looked up, smiling slightly, and more calm now. "Do you feel any better?"

Jasper cleared his throat and pulled back, and Esme beat down the disappointment she could no longer hold her baby in her arms. Because really, he was just that. Newest to their diet, and newest in her heart, though that did not lessen her love for him one bit.

Now, Jasper brushed his fingertips along the top of her hand, and she smiled at him, sitting down next to Jasper, the book lay forgotten.

"It hurts me to see you like this, Jasper."

"I'm sorry," he whispered, staring into the forest now. Putting his emotionless mask back in place.

"Don't be. Remembering your past is one thing, but longing for it, Jasper, that's what makes us more humane. That's what makes you different from others. Different from the nomads. _Different from Maria._" She added the last part much more softly.

"Thank you," Jasper finally said after a pause. "Thank you for everything. For taking us in, for loving me, for accepting me. Just your calm emotions have been an oasis in a dry desert. Thank you..._mom._"

If she could have, Esme surely would have been crying tears of joy. Even if sometimes only jokingly, all her sons and daughters had called her 'mom' at one point or another, all besides Jasper. She had always been a little afraid that it was because he didn't love her. "You're welcome," she managed to get out.

"Because that's what you are," Jasper started again. "You're my mother, just as much as she is. Just as much as this is my home. You and Carlisle and the others, you're all my family. But you'll always be at the top. My mother."

"I love you Jasper," she murmured to him

"I love you too, Mom."

There was a peal of laughter then, and they both looked up to see Renesmee on Jacob's back as he ran in as a wolf. He slowed to a trot and brought the little girl up to her grandmother and uncle, sitting there on the back patio. Wagging his tail, Jacob licked Nessie on the cheek, and she started giggling again.

Jasper glanced at Esme from the corner of his eye as she bent down to pick Renesmee up. He was now partially healed from the pains of his past, thanks to his mother. His _true _mother.

"This is home," he decided, and he didn't plan to leave them again anytime soon.

_Well I'm pretty satisfied with this. Not too sure about the ending, though. Writing this from Esme's perspective (not her point of view, but from her frame of mind) made me like her a lot more. Oh, I liked her before, but there's something about getting into a character's mind that really helps you understand them better. Like Jacob's point of view in Breaking Dawn._

_ Glad I got something out before finals, but now...I have to study (NOOOO!). Wish me luck._

_ Disclaimer: I own nothing._

_ Remember, feedback is adored. _


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